Alba Lázaro-GonzálezUniversity of Granada | UGR · Department of Ecology
Alba Lázaro-González
PhD Ecology
About
27
Publications
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Introduction
I'm PhD in terrestrial ecology, interested in direct and indirect effects of plant-plant and plant-animal interactions and their ecological consequences in a wide range of scales, from species to ecosystem level.
Publications
Publications (27)
Physiological thermal limits can mediate species coexistence at local scales. However, it is challenging to untangle the role they play when coexisting species are also highly related, given that phylogeny may inform physiology. However, if species exploit similar trophic resources, there must be a degree of niche differentiation that precludes com...
Mistletoe-host systems exemplify an intimate and chronic relationship where mistletoes represent protracted stress for hosts, causing long-lasting impact. Although host changes in morphological and reproductive traits due to parasitism are well known, shifts in their physiological system, altering metabolite concentrations, are less known due to th...
Revegetation is key to achieve the goals of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration. For many situations and plant species, selecting direct seeding or planting can define revegetation success. However, there is no clarity about when one method should be preferred over the other, partly driven by methodological difficulties that preclude avoiding b...
In this thesis, a study is made of the different roles that the European mistletoe (Viscum album subsp. austriacum) can play simultaneously in a Mediterranean pine forest, and their ecological consequences generating multiple plant–plant and plant–animal interactions in their ecosystem. Due to their hemiparasitic nature, the mistletoe has been trad...
• Forest canopies provide the initial physical and biological framework to secondary, dependent species, such as parasitic plants. In a Mediterranean pine forest, we have taxonomically and functionally characterised the entire arthropod community that interacts with mistletoe during its flowering period.
• We hypothesise that a secondary foundation...
Appendix S1. Description of ecological context for thermal environment and floral market during the sampling period of the main study.
Appendix S2. Abundance (mean ± SE) of each taxonomic group of the arthropod community collected on pairs of pan traps (n=280 total pan traps) hanging on parasitized and unparasitized pine branches.
Appendix S3. Abundance (mean ± SE) of each taxonomic group of the arthropod communities visiting leaves and branches (foliar visitors) and flowers (floral visitors) on mistletoe plants (n =149 for each sampling) during their flowering period.
1. The colonisation of a new habitat by a community is led by deterministic and stochastic processes at different spatio‐temporal scales. Parasitic plants, such as mistletoe, represent a new habitat within forest canopy that is free to be colonised by many organisms.
2. This study investigates how ecological factors operating at forest and plant sc...
Field-collected data of "Ecological assembly rules on arthropod community inhabiting mistletoes" publication.
Providing fruit, nectar, leaves and litter, mistletoes represent important resources for many organisms, linking above‐ground patterns with below‐ground processes. Here, we explore how mistletoe litter affects arthropod availability, especially those taxa preferentially consumed by ground‐feeding insectivorous birds, a group that has undergone wide...
Indirect interactions emerge among a wide range of herbivores sharing the same plant resource. Consumers usually belong to different trophic guilds, from folivores and sapsuckers to parasitic plants. We propose that mistletoes parasitizing pines could play a key role acting as herbivores on host pines and coming indirectly into competition with oth...
Stress caused by parasitic plants, e.g. mistletoes, alters certain host-plant traits as a response. While several physical implications of the parasite-host relation have been well studied, shifts in the host chemical profile remain poorly understood. Here we compare the chemical profiles of mistletoe (Viscum album subsp. austriacum) leaves and hos...
Appendix 1. Mean ± SE chemical compound amounts in previous-year (2011) and current-year (2012) needle cohorts from pines with 4 parasite load levels (Control, Low, Medium, and High)
Appendix 2. Representative gas chromatogram with numbered peaks according to compounds identified in pine needles (top) and mistletoe leaves extracts (bottom, inverted). Numbered peaks correspond to: 1) Tricyclene*, 2) α-Thujene, 3) α-Pinene, 4) Camphene, 5) Sabinene, 6) β-Pinene, 7) Myrcene, 8) Limonene, 9) β-Phellandrene*, 10) Ocimene, 11) Terpin...
• Key message
Parasitism by mistletoe increases the cover and diversity of herbaceous vegetation under the host tree and attracts the activity of rabbits in comparison to control trees. Thus, the effects on forest community go beyond the parasitized tree.
• Context
Mistletoes are a diverse group of aerial hemiparasitic plants and are considered ke...
Parasitic plants growing on tree branches may be a novel niche and phytoresource for arthropods. The spatial continuity between hosts and their parasites in canopies might provide a homogeneous environment for arthropod communities, but differences in mistletoe leaves and host needles could be exploited by different species of arthropods. Therefore...
Pine trees may show considerable variability in chemical composition in response to
environmental conditions. Pine consumers, particularly herbivores and parasitic plants, can also promote pine chemical changes. For several pine species, the mistletoe (Viscum album subsp. austriacum) acts as a keystone species, taking a leading role on the modifica...
Appendix 1. Figure. Nest temperature and daily rhythms of ant activity in B (burnt) and UB (unburnt) plots for the five observation days.
Appendix 2. Table. Mean±SE seed density (seeds/m2) availability around Aphaenogaster
gibbosa nests during this study.
1. Fire greatly affects plant and animal biodiversity. There is an extensive
body of literature on the effects of fire on insect communities, in which a large
variability of responses has been observed. Very few studies, however, have
addressed functional responses at the species level, information that would greatly
enhance our understanding of th...
Questions
Question (1)
Hello! I’m having some problems applying a Structural Equation Model. I have 18 variables and 110 replications. Several variables are non-normally distributed (both endogenous and exogenous), some of which are zero-inflated.
I started using piecewiseSEM, but I had to discard this approach because I need to represent cyclic relationships (i.e., A-B-C-A) which cannot be evaluated through this method. Even without specifying the cycles, and simplifying the model as much as possible (including just 3 variables), I get a poor model fit and a P-value much lower than 0.05. When using Lavaan, although I can include cyclic relationships, I get the same problems with the model fit and P-value. What may be the reason for this?
I cannot change the structure of the model (relationships among variables) without it becoming biologically absurd. I’d like to know (1) if it would be possible to improve the model fit by applying some transformation or standardization?—I’ve already tried standardizing the data, but I get the same problems; (2) Whether it is correct to use zero-inflated and/or Poisson variables with the Lavaan function?—The model accepts the variables as they are, and we get a result, but a poor model fit; (3) Would it be correct to split a model to meet the number of minimum replications versus the number of estimated parameters?
Thanks in advance for your response. Kind regards.
Projects
Project (1)
Reforestation is a key intervention to restore degraded ecosystems, mitigate climate change, adapt ecosystems to novel environmental conditions, and recover essential ecosystem services. Under climate change, it is increasingly essential to understand the factors that explained reforestation success in the past to forecast and improve success under future conditions. Key further questions are whether seedling performance can be enhanced through proper choice of reforestation method (sowing or planting) and whether this interacts with recently-proposed feedback mechanisms between plant nutrition and water availability in explaining plant stress and performance under drought. We will address these gaps through review and field studies. This project is funded by FEDER and the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities (Reference: RTI2018-096187-J-I00)
